How do ocean mammals like whales and seals get their drinking water?

Question

While watching a seal splashing in the waves, I wondered how ocean mammals get their fresh water to drink. Do they convert saltwater somehow, or do they get their water from the food they eat?

Answer 1

well they usuallly get it from there food they eat not the salt water but the food they eat has water in it so that's how true answer!!!

Answer 2

ummmmmmmmm........ocean water duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Answer 3

take time to realise.............

Answer 4

They dont drink it generally. But they do ingest it with their food. Their kidney is specially designed with a lot of lobe to excrete the excess so they dont dehydrate themselves. We get dehydrated by drinking salt water because we cant concentrate our urine (we loose a lot of water when we pee) marine mammals can concentrate the urine so it is mostly salt with little water loss.

Answer 5

their skin absorbs water except the salt

Answer 6

They prefer silly straws, but will drink directly if need be.  Then they use their juxtamedullary nephrons, you know, the ones with glomeruli located descending deep into the medulla.  The salt is then reabsorbed the ascending limb of the loop.  There is then an osmolar gradient to allow water reabsorption for the porpoises purposes.

Answer 7

hmmmmmmmm!!!????????

Answer 8

These large ocean mammals use their food to get fresh water.      However they also can absorb water as we do.  We cannot absorb salt water because water is drawn to a more salty area.  This is why when using water colors, if you put salt on the picture, it will absorb the water and color leaving the area lighter or white again.  This is also why we need to have salt in our diet.  When we eat salt on food we are able to put that salt into our cells which will help to draw more water into them the next time we drink.  However, if we drink salt water it will be more salty outside of the cells, and therefore the cells will dry out.  Large mammals like whales and seals are able to deal with this higher salt content in their water because they themselves have a high salt content.  It is not a matter of salt or no salt, it is a matter of which has MORE salt.  Since their bodies have more salt within the cells, they are able to absorb water from the salty sea.

Answer 9

are you nutts. they are always dipped inside water. why would they need water. when ever they open their mouth like haaaaaaaa they get as much water as they want. well it is salty but they still drink it. they dont have mineral water bottles like us you see!

Answer 10

their mouths and live desalination plan ts

Answer 11

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmm???????  Interesting question...................................

Answer 12

This is my answer I gave from only a few days ago to this question " HOW DO MARINE MAMMALS DRINK WATER" - Although some marine mammals are known to drink seawater at least on occasion, it is not well established that they routinely do so. They have other options: sea-dwelling mammals can get water through their food, and they can produce it internally from the metabolic breakdown of food (water is one of the by-products of carbohydrate and fat metabolism).

The salt content of the blood and other body fluids of marine mammals is not very different from that of terrestrial mammals or any other vertebrates: it is about one third as salty as seawater. Because a vertebrate that drinks seawater is taking in something three times saltier than its blood, it must get rid of the excess salt by producing very salty urine. In the seal and sea lion species, for which measurements exist, the animals' urine contains up to two and a half times more salt than seawater does and seven or eight times more salt than their blood.

Answer 13

they filter the salt water through their throat or some other things to get their freshwater.

some one told me that... hmmmm!!!

Answer 14

Yes they get the good water from fishes so they dont have to drinking salt water all the time. So I'm guessing they get there water from the fishes when they eat them.

Answer 15

interesting question

Answer 16

They get enough moisture from their food.

Answer 17

Depending on the type of species whales get their fresh water from the food that  they eat. fish krill and other small animals have fresh water in there system that they process. Other whales may convert salt water to fresh water. there is no actual anwser because there is no actual study on whales......

Answer 18

from their food & their matabolism

Answer 19

I think they have a filter in there mouths that gets rid of the salt from the water

Answer 20

They eat fish because fish have fresh water in them

Answer 21

There are two widely accepted explanations:

1. They live on the water of the organisms they eat.

2. They have adapted to drinking water with high salt content that would kill us if we tried to drink it.

A fuller explanation is in the linked article.

Hope this helps.